There was no one there.
“But we both heard the footfalls,” Flora said once they stood there staring at the empty space.
“That we did,” Torin agreed, looking around puzzled.
Flora looked as well, feeling as if she may have missed something and something did catch her eye. She went to the sealed door. “Torin, come look.”
Torin stood beside his wife and stared at where she pointed. The stone that had crumbled some when last he was here had now nearly crumbled through.
Flora, curious as she was, poked at the section and the corner of the stone completely broke, falling into the sealed room, her finger disappearing through the hole.
Torin was quick to grab her wrist and yank her hand away, fearful of what her finger might meet there. As he did, a rush of cold air spewed from the hole, chilling them both.
“It would seem the room is where the rush of cold air is finding its entrance,” Flora said and brought her face close to the hole to peer through it.
Torin pulled her back. “Nay! Do not look in there. We know not what it holds.”
“Well, we certainly cannot repair the mortar now knowing the rush of wind is coming from the room. Whatever is causing it must be repaired. The years of neglect can be ignored no longer, or it may very well grow worse leaving the keep vulnerable to cold, decay, and tales of a ghost.”
Torin stared at the sealed door. “I know you are right, but endless years of being ordered never to open it leaves me troubled to do so.”
Flora placed a gentle hand on her husband’s arm. “Then take time to think on it, though not too much time, and do what you feel you must. Though, I am curious as to the footfalls we heard.”
“I cannot deny we heard them. It was clear that we did, but I cannot explain it myself.”
“Perhaps the sound echoed from someplace else,” Flora suggested.
“I suppose, though it does not seem likely since you ordered the servants to stay below.”
“We were lost in a fit of passion, perhaps we heard the decaying stone crumbling onto the floor, and we mistakenly thought it footfalls,” she said.
“Another possibility,” he conceded, though sounded doubtful.
Another frigid wind came spewing through the hole and Flora shivered.
“We are finished here,” Torin said. “And you need a hot brew to warm you.”
“There is another possibility we haven’t considered,” Flora said as her husband placed his hand at her back to guide her to the stairs.
“What is that?” he asked.
“That a ghost does exist and wants the room and its secrets revealed.”
* * *
Torin layin bed unable to sleep, his wife snuggled against him. She had easily drifted off to sleep after they had made love. It had not been rushed like earlier in the day. They had taken their time, talking, touching, teasing, kissing until neither of them could wait any longer.
Now, however, he could not get his mind off the footfalls they had heard. His wife had offered feasible explanations and thought-provoking ones as well. Yet none seemed to appease him. He recalled his grandda’s words when he had asked once again about the tower room.
“Some things are better left alone.”
He had tried to imagine what could have happened that caused the room to be sealed. He had heard tales of men who had sealed enemies even a wife in a room to make them suffer and be rid of them. And then there was talk of the room being a place of torture. What demon’s ghosts would he release if horrible things had been done to people there?
It was not an easy decision for him to make and it troubled him greatly.
He shut his eyes hoping sleep would rescue him and felt himself drifting off, that was until the cold rushed over him, chilling his body to the bone.
His eyes sprang open, and he bolted up in bed and saw a ghostly figure shimmering at the bottom of the bed. The apparition was too distorted for him to make out a clear figure. He stared, not sure what to do.